Becoming the Monster
by Chibi StarLyte
Summary: As a dare from his friends, John finds himself out in the woods at night with a mission to find eight mysterious pages and to avoid a creature known as the Slenderman. T for language and general scariness.


What's Halloween without a little Slenderlock?

I've been scaring the shit out of myself with Slenderman things lately, so I wanted to write this fic for Halloween.

As of right now, this is unbeta'd, but it should be beta'd within the next week. Aki is busy with schoolwork and the like, and I wanted to actually post this on Halloween. Therefore, I mean this now more than ever, please let me know if you find any typos/errors/etc. Also, any and all Americanisms are entirely my own fault.

Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own Sherlock or Slenderman.

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John was going to kill his mates.

Really, he had no idea why in the world he'd agreed to this bloody stupid idea. Peer pressure was indeed to dangerous thing to succumb to, and, through some very insistent persuasion, John now found himself alone in the woods behind Mike Stamford's house with nothing but a dim torch whose batteries threatened to die soon.

His mission? Locate eight pages of drawings and avoid being caught by the Slenderman. Whoever _that_ was.

Tall, lanky, suit and tie, no face. That was the description John received from his friends. Oh, can't forget that this "Slenderman" was also a stalking, predatory killer. He _couldn't_ be real.

"'Find all the pages,' they said. 'It'll be fun,' they said," John muttered bitterly, shining a cone of light through the foliage. He'd been out here for at least ten minutes at this point, though it felt much longer than that. And he'd yet to find one of those damn papers. He had half a mind to just go back to the house empty-handed, but the other, more determined part of his personality would not allow him to return from his task a failure. No matter how insane said task was in the first place.

Even if he did decide to go back, he had no clue which way "back" was. In just wandering around aimlessly amongst the trees, he'd gotten himself good and lost. Yep, his mates were as good as dead.

Ah, _there!_ Something was pasted on a tree just ahead, gleaming white under the torch's light. John ran toward it, leaves and twigs cracking beneath his feet as he went.

_ALWAYS WATCHES_

_NO EYES_

John almost laughed at the text scribbled across the paper; the doodle between the two phrases looked like it was drawn by a two-year-old. Probably Bill Murray's little sister. It was comedic, his friends trying to take the piss out of him. And still no sign of the Slenderman, which wasn't surprising considering the creature was made up. Right?

Though John couldn't shake the feeling that something—or some_one_—was watching him from the shadows. He chalked it up to one of the various woodland creatures. Maybe a raccoon. Nevertheless, he continued on his quest.

John stayed between the trees, unable to find the path he was on before making a mad dash to the first page. He almost regretted not keeping track of his surroundings better—if he wasn't scared before, he certainly was starting to get the creeps now. The trees looming tall and ominous around him, their dark bark alight with a dim glow when he shone his torch about in search of either the path or another stupid page.

He found the second page a lot sooner than he expected, pasted to a decrepit-looking iron and wooden cart. What the hell was _that_ doing out in Mike's woods? John pulled the paper off the rotting wood, taking a good look over the inky scratches. There were no words on this one; it was just a toddler's rendition of a grouping of trees, with a tall, long-limbed man standing amongst them.

Despite John telling himself that no, this wasn't real, it was all just a dumb prank, fear quietly simmered deep down in the pit of his stomach. That feeling of being watched hadn't gone away—in fact, it seemed to have only gotten stronger. And apparently this thing liked to hide in the trees? Great. It wasn't like he was surrounded by trees at the moment or anything.

Pocketing the second page in his coat, John lifted his torch to look around—

Oh shit SHIT_ SHIT._

In a flurry of leaves and dried grass, John turned around and booked it like a bat out of hell in the opposite direction. It was only for a second, but he swore, _he swore_ he saw it. The Slenderman, staring right at him from a distance.

But…its description didn't exactly match what his friends had told him so enthusiastically. There was…something else. A tuft of dark curls nestled atop that blank, oval face.

Okay. No time to panic. Probably just a trick of the light or something. Yes, of course that was what it was.

Spotting the third page, however, was decidedly _not_ a trick of the light.

Instead of running this time, John slowly and as quietly as possible made his way toward the strange crags jutting out of the ground. All right, rocks in the middle of the forest? This was just getting weirder and weirder.

_LEAVE ME ALONE_

"I'd leave you alone if you'd stop chasing me," John said under his breath, folding the page up and stowing it with the other two in his coat pocket.

For another few minutes John wandered around, eventually—thankfully—finding his way back to the path. He still had no idea which direction he was headed. Why didn't he think ahead and bring at least a compass or something? At least he was out of the trees now, and hadn't seen the Slenderman since his initial sighting. So far, so good.

And hey, there was the fourth page just ahead, taped to a really old tree in the middle of a clearing. It looked like it'd been there for centuries. All things considered, that was a normal thing to see in a forest, for which John was glad.

_CAN'T RUN_.

John studied the page for a few seconds longer than was probably necessary before folding it away with the others. Half-way there—only four pages to go.

Wait. He felt something else inside his pocket…

Of course! His phone! He could call Mike and ask how to get out of there, or at the very least activate the GPS and use that to find his way out.

Feeling rather brilliant for coming up with this ingenious plan, John clicked the unlock button on his phone to enter in the passcode. When the screen lit up, it fizzed and crackled with static. That was bizarre. He'd never, ever seen his phone do _that_ before.

Then he felt something just barely graze the back of his coat and—

Fuck fuck _no_ Jesus Christ _RUN_.

Like a bullet John shot down the path, dropping his phone in light of the panic and momentary cardiac arrest that overcame him. Shit, was that the Slenderman?! John ran and ran and ran, the words from the note he'd just found echoing in his head. Why was he running if the paper warned him that he couldn't?

So caught up in running for his life, John almost missed the fifth page posted haphazardly to a tree along the left side of the path. He snatched the paper up and just _kept running_.

_FOLLOWS_

No matter how quickly his legs carried him, John _knew_ he felt something behind him getting ever closer. An eerie, ghost-like presence that just didn't go away and _Christ _there was a _breath_ cold and sinister on the back of his neck and _oh GOD it was going to get him_.

And then…nothing.

John tripped over his own feet, plummeting face-first to the ground. He thrust out his arms to catch himself, feeling sharp pebbles and fallen sticks cut and scrape into the skin of his palms. And he was pretty sure his knee was bleeding too, if the sudden warm stickiness and tear in his jeans were any indication. But he didn't care. He just needed to _get the fuck out of here_.

Grabbing his torch from where it had fallen with him in the dirt, John fumbled with it in his sore hands and looked around frantically. That thing had been right behind him; where the bloody hell did it go?

Thankfully, in his hysterical searching, he found the sixth note attached to a shovel stuck in the ground.

_HELP ME_

As soon as John grabbed the page and was on his way again, his torch began to flicker on and off, illuminating the forest like a weakened strobe light.

Oh please God _no_. Not now.

Without any light, John was well and truly screwed. Condemned to death, running around aimlessly in the dark until the Slenderman came for him.

"John…"

He whipped his head around, aiming his dying torch at the trees. Okay, where the_ fuck_ had that voice come from?

"Help me…John…"

Nope. Nope, this wasn't happening. Wasn't. _Happening_.

"John…_help me_…!"

The voice was right behind him, whispering in his ear and John felt his entire body go rigid in fear.

The last flash of light illuminated the seventh page on a tree not too far away, and in a last-ditch effort, John propelled himself forward with every ounce of will power he had and dashed for the page.

_DON'T LOOK…_

_OR IT TAKES YOU_

By no force of his own, John felt himself slowly turning around, like a puppet whose strings were being pulled and manipulated by an evil mastermind. He found himself staring into the face of the Slenderman, framed by curls and black tendrils of smoke, and he could have sworn the expressionless, featureless visage looked…sad, somehow.

_NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO_

Everything went hazy before fading completely to black.

.

"John!"

"JOHN!"

"C'mon mate, where are you?!"

Familiar voices rang out in his head like a distant memory. John grappled with the edges of consciousness, struggling to pull himself free from the black abyss that kept trying to swallow him up again.

"For God's sake, John, answer us!"

With a gurgled groan, John opened his eyes.

Blinding light stabbed through his corneas, and he immediately wrenched his eyes shut again.

Wait…light?

"Oh my God, there he is!"

Suddenly, the morning sunlight was blocked by four bodies standing around John, who slowly came to the realization that he was on the ground, lying flat on his back. There was a large hand picking up his wrist, middle and forefingers searching for a pulse. Then, he heard relieved sighs all around. Again he tried to crack his eyes open, his minimal sight bleary and unfocused.

The first face he saw clearly was the pudgy one of Mike Stamford, who looked for all the world like he'd just dodged a bomb. "Thank God you're here, mate!" he said, scooping a still groggy John into his arms and nearly hugging the life out of him. "We found your mobile lying on the ground further back. When you didn't come back last night, we thought…"

"We thought you were dead," Bill Murray said.

Funny…John thought he was dead, too.

But…

"I saw him," John croaked as Mike let go of him. He reclined back on one arm, rubbing at his eyes with his free hand.

"Saw who?" asked Mike.

"The Slenderman."

Silence fell among the group—a tense, worried kind of silence. Four pairs of eyes fell on John, and he shivered. That sensation of being watched was still too raw, still sent fear coursing through his veins.

"John…," Mike enunciated slowly, as if talking to a child. "Slenderman…he isn't real. We were all just joking with you."

That was what John believed in the first place. But after last night…no, it couldn't have been just a dream. It was _real_…it _had_ to have been. "But I—"

Bill hooked an arm beneath John's armpit and hoisted him up with Mike's help. "I think maybe you conked your head, mate. You can't have seen him."

John sighed, glad to have Mike and Bill to lean on. His entire body felt weighed down by bags of cement, his legs wobbly and weak like gelatin. "Maybe you're right," he admitted, hanging his head.

"C'mon," Mike prodded. "Let's get you back to my place."

Thus, the four friends helped guide a weary John through the forest and back to the safety of Mike's house. He was definitely worse for the wear.

And Slenderman watched them all from behind a far-off tree, keeping his non-eyes on them until they disappeared completely from his view. Before vanishing into the foliage himself, he left a note pasted to the tree next to him. Then, he was gone.

_SAFE._

_.  
_

I would just like to quickly point out that, in my head, Sherlock is going through a transformation into Slenderman, having been the previous Slenderman's last victim or something of that sort. Thus, he still has his hair and is more merciful than he should be as a Slenderman. Hope that clears anything up!

Until next time,  
Chibi


End file.
